On Other Blogs Today: Bros, Bikes, Framing, and ... Vote!

Our daily roundup.

1. Our Seattle Met colleague Kathryn Robinson—who reviews restaurants for the magazine and also writes a monthly column for the Met, "Back Fence"—took a fascinating look at the dude culture that pervades Seattle tech companies, and how it impacts the women who work in those companies.

Seattle famously has more men than women—a situation you might think would make for a great dating scene for women. Not so, Robinson found; in fact, women, particularly women in tech, have a hard time meeting men they like—emphasis on men they like.

Part of the reason is that when companies like Google and Amazon reveal the gender breakdown of their workforces (most of which already skew heavily male), what they don't tell you is that most of its female employees are in women and support positions such as marketing, so they don't tend to hang out in the same circles as the men.

"The consequence for high-tech firms is an arrogant brogrammer culture that can make women feel undermentored at best, belittled and abused at worst," Robinson writes.

There's a lot more there, and it's all well worth a read.

2. The city has temporarily banned right turns at one extremely dangerous intersection (at Dexter Ave. N. and Mercer St.), where two cars making illegal right turns from Dexter onto westbound Mercer have run into bikes heading straight on Dexter in the past week.

The temporary new no-right-turn sign, a small change that will last only until the middle of next year (when construction in the area ends), somehow qualified as above-the-fold news in the Seattle Times, which headlined it from the perspective of drivers who apparently shouldn't have to wait for bikes to make it through the intersection: "Seattle slaps right-turn ban on busy Dexter-Mercer intersection."

Much in contrast, Seattle Bike Blog reported the same story with the headline, "City runs dangerous right turns across Dexter bike lane at Mercer," noting that even so, "With so much construction in the area — including big detours to make room for utility relocation work as part of the SR 99 deep bore tunnel project — travel along one of the city’s busiest bike routes has a long way to go before it is truly comfortable."

3. Speaking of framing, the PI.com wrote about another traffic-related story: A van took an illegal turn in front of a light-rail train, causing five people to be injured after the train conductor managed to stop the train using the emergency brake.

Notwithstanding the fact that the light rail had to stop because a van ran out in front of it, the headline the PI.com chose to illustrate the story was, "Five sent to hospital after light rail hits van."

4. In advance of tomorrow's election, Goldy at Horse's Ass has a post that might help convince you to vote for the parks levy: After tweeting out a photo of an overflowing trash can in a nearby park that was later completely cleaned up by the Seattle Parks Department, Goldy notes bluntly, 'one of the memes in every anti-tax campaign is that government needs to prove that it can be less wasteful with taxpayer money before we give them any more of it—and when we hear that relentlessly coming from the likes of the Seattle Times editorial board, what they really mean is 'fuck those lazy, overpaid, unionized public employees.' You know, the lazy, overpaid, unionized public employees whose job it is to pick up our trash."

6. He isn't kidding, by the way: The Times ran a nearly incoherent editorial (the latest of many) opposing the parks levy based on the argument that elephants at Woodland Park Zoo have been treated poorly, therefore taxpayers should spend less on Woodland Park Zoo—and the entire rest of the city's park system.

Think "nearly incoherent" is an exaggeration? Read the lede:

LOCAL taxpayers now know how Watoto, Bamboo and Chai feel at the Woodland Park Zoo. Helping pay the bills does not earn respectful treatment.

The zoo receives many tens of millions of dollars from public coffers but resolutely refuses to explain how it spends the money. Tax dollars disappear into a void with no transparency or accountability.

"Helping pay the bills does not earn respectful treatment"? Well, maybe not: But it sure does help the parks department pick up the trash.

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